Book Review: Africa: South-West Africa
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| Author | J. H. Chettle |
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900438 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
591
feeling
over
the
strongly
expressed
views of
the
governed,
and
do
not
like
decisions
which
may
cause
unrest
and
violence
....
The Tories
are
far
colder
and
more dangerous
fish.
Centuries
of
government
have
taught
them
the
value
of
ruthlessness,
expecially when
their
own
inter-
ests
are
concerned."
(p.
83).
In
East
Africa
the
Africans and
the
settlers
in
turn
were
to
experience
this ruthlessness.
Blundell
arrived
in
Kenya
in
1925
as
an
eighteen-year-old public
school
graduate.
He describes
the
Kenya
which
he
first
encountered,
but
the
main portion
of his
book
concerns
the
development
of
African
nationalism,
which he
dates
from the African
servicemen's experience
in
the
Second
World
War,
and
the
subsequent
reactions
thereto
of
the
colonial
administrators
and
of
the
settlers.
The
author
served
for
four
years
as
commanding
officer
of
a
battalion
of
Kenyans.
After
the
war
he
entered
Kenyan
politics,
becoming
in
turn
leader
of
the
Eu-
ropean
elected
members,
member
of
the
Emergency
War
Council
dur-
ing
the
Mau Mau
troubles,
and
twice
Minister
of
Agriculture,
resign-
ing
on
the
first
occasion
in
1959
to
lead
the
New
Kenya
Party,
a
group
advocating
interracial partnership,
and
assuming
the
portfolio
again
in
the
K.A.D.U.
ministry
of
Ronald
Ngala
in
1962.
His
appraisals
of
African and
local
Asian
leaders,
governors
and
Secretaries
of
State
for
the
Colonies
are
of
interest,
but
of
greater
value,
because
our
sources of
information
are
more
limited,
are
his
dis-
cussions
of
the
differences of
opinion
among
the settlers,
ranging
from
those
who
clung to
the
dream
of
a
White
Dominion
of
East
Africa
to
those
who
ultimately
accepted
the
idea
of
an
African
nation
in
which
resident
Europeans
whould
advise
rather
than
lead.
It
is
an
effectively
presented
account
by
a
well
informed
and
outspoken
author
which
might
well
earn
for
itself
a
permanent
place in
the
literature
of
Britain's
retreat
from Empire
in
East
Africa.
University
of
WaterZoo
K. A.
MAcKIRDY
SOUTH-WEST
AFRICA.
By
Ruth
First.
1963.
(Harmondsworth:
Pen-
guin.
Toronto: Longmans.
269pp.
$1.25)
The
alternatives,
in
seeking
information
about
South-West
Africa,
tend
to
be
limited:
the
patronising
anthropological
observation
and
suspect
statistics
of
the
Nationalist
Government, or
the
inaccuracy
of
violently
committed
works
of
this
kind.
Miss
First's
case, however,
has
a
strength
which
even
her strong
convictions
and
Marxist
precon-
ceptions
have
been
unable
entirely
to distort.
The
idyllic
scene
she
depicts
of
African
life
before
the
German
occupation
bears
some
resemblance to
the
picture
of
the
life
of
the
noble
savage
wrought
by
Rousseau's
imagination:
great
herds
of
cattle
roam
the
fertile
valleys.
Of
the frequent
and
destructive
wars
between
the
Hereros and
the
Namaquas
we
are
told
nothing.
An
authority
as
respected
as
Veit
Valentin
has
described
German
South-West
Africa
as
"the
spoiled
child
among
the
German
colonies",
but
of
their
constructive
expenditure
we
are
told
very
little.
The plot
for
Miss
First
has
a
pleasant
simplicity:
the
Africans
radiate
a
poetic
pastoral
innocence.
If
the
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